


we'll give the world to you and you'll blow us all away

by MermaidMayonnaise



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode: s05e06 The Shrine, M/M, Open Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:40:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22111216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MermaidMayonnaise/pseuds/MermaidMayonnaise
Summary: McKay’s wearing John's leather jacket. John’s wearing the shirt he brought with him. The pair of them sit with their feet dangling off the edge of their favorite pier, looking out over the moonlit ocean.
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Comments: 11
Kudos: 52





	we'll give the world to you and you'll blow us all away

**Author's Note:**

> 1.3.20. Actually, it's 1.4.20 now.
> 
> Watched "The Shrine." Had some feelings. Small, quick and dirty fic. Used actual dialogue from the show... until I didn't. Self-betaed, which is a fancy way of saying that it's unbetaed.
> 
> Tag warning at end, it's a spoiler.

John wakes up to a hammering on his door.

“John!” McKay yells, then pounds again. “John!”

John’s instantly alert. He whips off the sheets, switches on the bedside light and scrambles out of bed. He runs to the doors as McKay hammers on the doors a third time.

“John!”

John thinks the door open, and McKay surges into the room and grabs him by the shoulders.

“You were there, and then y-you…”

“Rodney, Rodney!” says John, heart hammering. “I'm right here! What's wrong?”

Rodney stares at him, half-hysterical. “I woke up, but Ronon left!”

John doesn’t know what to say. “I'm sorry.” Rodney lets go of him and stumbles into the room, clutching his head. He’s on the edge of tears. John’s never seen him this anguished before. “I thought you'd fallen asleep.”

The words are inadequate. Rodney groans, one hand at his temple. “I was... I got so scared. I was sure that…” He lowers his hands and stares at John. “By morning what was left of my mind would be gone.”

John puts a hand on McKay’s shoulder. “I'm gonna take you back to your quarters, okay?”

McKay says, “John, John, I've never been so scared. I'm slipping away. I'm slipping away and I don't know how to stop myself.” Mckay looks right at John. His shoulders are shaking; he looks unraveled, undone.

John grabs his arms, needing to reassure him. “Look, you're still here, all right? You're still here.” McKay calms down a little at the contact.

“Right.” His chest is still heaving, eyes wet. “I am.”

“And I'm not going anywhere,” John says. “Hell, you wanna hang out, you just…” he loses his words, adds lamely, “hang out.”

“I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do with myself.” McKay suddenly diverts his gaze, ashamed. “I'm... I'm sorry. I shouldn't... I shouldn't have woken you up.”

“Hey, look.” John wants McKay to stop with the… uncertainty. The indecisiveness. It scares him, just a little. “It's a nice night out. Let's go and have some beer on the pier.” He tacks an “Okay?” at the end, but it’s not a question. He pats McKay’s shoulders again, goes over to the side of the room. He opens the small fridge he recently requisitioned and received from the Daedalus. McKay turns to him, confused.

“I drink beer?”

John laughs despite himself. “A lot.” He picks up his leather jacket and throws it to McKay. “Take this.” He takes out a six-pack of beer from the fridge and shuts its door. “Come on, buddy, let's go.”

-

McKay’s wearing John's leather jacket. John’s wearing the shirt he brought with him. The pair of them sit with their feet dangling off the edge of their favorite pier, looking out over the moonlit ocean. John cracks open another can of beer and hands it to McKay.

“I dunno,” McKay says. “Should I have another?”

“What could happen?” John cracks open another can for himself.

McKay puts down his empty can and accepts the offer of another. “I shouldn't have banged on your door like that. I feel ridiculous.”

“Don't.” John takes a long drink. Rodney squints at lights reflecting on the ocean.

“Did you know that I was jealous of you?” 

John stares. McKay defends himself by putting up his hands. “At first!”

John can’t imagine why anyone as intelligent and competent as McKay would ever be jealous of someone, not to mention someone like him. He tries to say so, but it gets strangled and comes out as a squeaky, “What?”

McKay waves his hands expansively. “When I first met you, you know with Antarctica and the Chair?”

John remembers because he doesn’t know how he could forget.

McKay continues. “When I asked you to think of where we are in the universe, you just looked right at me and… did it.”

McKay’s eyes were blue. They reflected the galaxies that spun above them both. They’re blue now too, and wet.

“That’s ‘cause of the gene,” John says, trying to downplay this. His throat is tight.

“Sure,” McKay says, leaning forward. “But it’s more than that, John. Everything’s been easy for you your entire life.”

“Uh-huh,” John says, angry. “And that’s why I’m on the other side of the universe, with life-sucking vampires and a family I haven’t talked to in two decades.”

“Cry me a river,” McKay blinks at the mention of John’s family, but still manages to roll his eyes. “You had a family fortune handed to you on a silver platter. Guaranteed college education to Harvard, Stanford, whatever. A mansion. Two beach houses.”

“That doesn’t mean my life was easy!”

McKay counts off on his fingers. “Money. Girls. Freedom. Sounds like the goddamn American Dream to me, Gatsby.”

“I had no freedom,” John hisses. “Ever since I understood what it was, I was groomed for my future. Do you know what it’s like to be ten and having your father talk about equity and stock bonds at the dinner table?”

“No.” McKay smacked his can down on the pier. “My parents were too busy yelling at each other and me and Jeannie.”

“We both have tragic pasts!” John shouted.

“Okay!” McKay shouted back. “But it shouldn’t make excuses for our behavior!”

John slumped, anger dispersing. “It feels like you stole a valuable piece of my identity.”

“Oh, shut up,” McKay said, but it was fond. “Everyone loves you, John.”

“Not everyone.”

McKay scoffed.

“No, seriously. Every commanding officer that I’ve ever had has hated me.”

“I think.” McKay stopped-- like he thought what he was going to say was stupid, and it  _ could  _ be stupid now-- then started again. “I think you’re a team player--”

“I’m not a team  _ anything--” _

“--will you let me finish? A team player who just hadn’t found the right team.” He cleared his throat. “Until us.”

“Have you been psychoanalyzing me in your free time?”

“I have a lot of it now,” McKay says simply.

That shut John up for a second. A non-busy, unstressed McKay. Unprecedented.

“Who taught you to hate yourself?” McKay says suddenly.

John startles. “Pot, kettle.”

“No,” McKay says thoughtfully. “I’m light-years away from what I was when I was at the SGC. When I was sent to Russia.” He stares at the dark horizon. “I think I like who I’ve become.”

John blinks away tears angrily. “You’re not going to die, McKay.”

“Why won’t you call me Rodney?” he asks sadly. “Everyone else does.”

Because John’s terrified: of himself, of McKay-- _ Rodney,  _ what their relationship might become. “I’m scared,” he blurts.

“There’s no reason to be scared now, here at the end of all things,” Rodney says. “Soon I’m not going to exist anymore. I’m going to die.” He says this calmly, and it irritates John; maybe it’s because John’s the only one falling apart.

“I’ve done my time.” Rodney spreads his hands. “There’s still so much left to do, but that’ll always be the case. Zelenka will have to shoulder the burden now.” He smiles fondly. “Maybe Miko will step up. Simpson. I know they have it in them.”

“Why are you being so…?” John’s lost for words.

“Nice?” Rodey fills in. “Passive?” He chuckles at the thought. “Anger takes energy. I’m tired, and I’m slow. It’s easier this way.”

“That sounds like an awful lot like giving up.”

Rodney stares down at his hands. They’re not fidgeting in his lap. He’s still, and it’s unnatural for him. “I guess I am.”

There’s silence. Rodney breaks it. “I want to say goodbye.”

“Absolutely not,” John says, voice rough.

“No, no, you see, I have to. I might not be able to-- later.”

“No!” John yells, breaking his composure. Rodney stares at him. “This isn’t the end. This isn’t goodbye.”

“You know there’s no cure for this, right?” Rodney asks softly.

John hasn’t cried since Holland’s death seven years ago. He cries now, great gasping sobs that wrack his body. He feels stupid. He’s barefoot and there are tears running down his face. Rodney should be the one that’s crying. But it’s him. For the first time in a very long while, he craves human touch. He falls into Rodney, and Rodney catches him with albeit shaky arms. John lies there for a while. Rodney strokes his hair, tentatively at first.

“I left you a video in my recordings,” Rodney says. “When-- if I don’t make it… I want you to watch it. And you might call me a jerk afterward, but. I just want you to know.”

“Know what, Rodney?” John asks, and this hurts. He doesn’t want to trade a secret for a death. Rodney only shakes his head.

“Not now. Please, John. I don’t want to think of what might have been anymore.”

“Okay,” John says, shattering. “Okay.”

_ Day 6. 22:14 _

Rodney sits in front of the video camera, looks straight into it. “John, there's something I wanted to, um. While I remember, while I still can; there's something I wanted to say before, um…”

“Go ahead,” Keller encourages gently from the background.

“I…” Rodney’s face is open, soft. “I love you.” He looks beautiful. “I've loved you for some time now.” He smiles shyly, tilts his face away. “I love you, John Sheppard.”

Keller’s breathing is quiet, choked up. “Do you want me to show this to him?”

“Maybe later.” Rodney smiles sadly. He’s wearing his favorite shirt, the one with the hole in the left sleeve. John’s wearing it now. He clutches it in his fist. “Now, where was I?”

**Author's Note:**

> Major character death, implied.


End file.
